Knee-jerk Opposition Within "The Left"

One of the central themes in "progressive" dialogue has to do with the way The Left devotes so much energy to chewing on its own innards. Perhaps ongoing internal strife is often our reality, at least in part, for the same reasons The Opposition can't seem to put aside the things They fear long enough to do even a basic cost-benefit analysis measuring the behavior of industrial nations and people against the obvious consequences of believing in limitless consumption. We fight all the time, often without thinking (irrationally) because We Are Fighters, because our foundational (and laudable) commitment to surfacing and valuing difference has become an unreflective habit in reaction to the ongoing systemic suppression of all that threatens "1st World" Country Club existence.

Many activists know this pattern well from personal experience. Difference is super-emphasized and intra-group conflict seems never to die down in the name of feeling like inequality is being addressed. Like other reasonable positions become extreme (and self-destructive) through habituation, what is most often missed in auto-critical processes is the power of making any single approach into a community ritual, into a mono-mythological cornerstone of identity for an entire group, in this case The Left's devotion to fighting. The Right has its We Are Fighters meme as well, obviously, and the grizzly metaphors are just another move to outflank by moving deeper into the reptilian brain and further from reflection, as implied by Karlin

and Becker.

But they employ the same Fighting rhetorical extremism they criticize as being unreflective (irrational).

When an essential component of "progressive" politics become an article of faith, a belief held uncritically and applied literally, it becomes difficult to deploy it precisely, where it will get an actual justice-oriented result, and perch on the verge of action (refrain from strife and be still with your concerns and community) when a clear strategy has yet to emerge and be thought through. This keeps us exhausted and at each others throats. What is needed is an approach borrowed, at least in part, from the martial arts. The activists I admire most are martial artists. They know how badly they can be hurt from having healed as many times as they have, and also the limitations and change-potential realized through ongoing training and the placement of practiced conflict techniques. What is hidden, and occasionally revealed by reflective veterans, is what I believe to be the next major cultural gift of social justice-oriented activists: the realization that right relationship is not normative agreement or an absence of struggle but is the experience of co-creating a community where peace is conflict is done well This is the five-word hook on all my promo material and the core of my facilitation system, called Martial Nonviolence.

I just finished an extensive conflict training for a community melting down around issues of the distance between their expressed power-sharing values and behavior. They have been fighting and pretending not to be fighting for some time and have several dynamics in common with other "progressive" organizations. Contrary to knee-jerk rhetoric, especially as amplified by email, the challenge is not to keep those Wronged from raising a stink, or to punish powerful Evildoers, as you might suspect. The challenge is to change expectations so that We (whomever identifies) may train together, assuming conflict as a daily reality, scheduling regular face-to-face practices with expert instruction (facilitation) available to make cultures in which the process of interacting is seen as an art. That's why group facilitation disciplines are more and more coming to be known as the "Process Arts," especially in the international activist dialogue, because The Left is slowly assimilating that our gift and cultural intervention (perhaps a next phase as a species) is learning to do conflict well, instead of clinging to the salvific fantasy that it can be eliminated. True martial artists know when to be still, not fight, take off all uniforms, go back to the other parts of their life and work to maintain a balance. But you can't stop defense and attack until you have some skills, have lost some naive hope and gained some experience with how brutal conflict can be when initiated thoughtlessly, and are no longer in reactive fear all the time. Veterans need reminders to come home on a regular basis, and open space always devoted to conflict practice, so they can relax a bit and know the time to struggle again is valued by the community and is just around the bend...and always will be.

Hoping for whatever response occurs to you,

Brandon